Pages

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Why choose Milaap?

After I started the campaign for Ex-devadasis joining and spreading word for Milaap, so we can say I have become a face for Milaap in my community. So I decided to study the website a lot and how does Milaap works and found their policies to be in place and very rigorous and I say so because when I tried to read the policy of how to become a field partner was so exhaustive but I think very important and crucial to create the trust between Milaap and the partner. You can read the policy here.

About the team:But how does it actually works.Milaap have its own team and people working with Milaap are very passionate people who are not working just because they want to earn money but because they care about the social cause and they are passionate young people who have heard about the initiative and joined in to help to bring the change. If you want to know them you can visit milaap.org/blog/meet-milaaps-fellows/. You can write to them and I am sure they will reply you back promptly. And not just that I have read all this on their website but after joining hands with them for the campaign, they have contacted me several times and whenever they have contacted me I have never felt that they are doing it for transactional purpose, I have always felt like they are my friends and trying to help me understand how it works. So personally it is not just about what the company is but the representatives are also very helpful people, and at least whatever conversation I had with them, I found them to be very genuine.

About the partners and how they work:Then they have multiple grass root level field-partners.Milaap identifies and partners credible, proven non-profit organizations and social businesses with a range of organizational types including microfinance organizations, vocational training institutes, artisan supply chains, schools to name a few.1 And the field-partners collect the information from the borrowers and their credibility and it becomes their responsibility to give details to Milaap about the borrowers and when the money is received from Milaap they are the one responsible for distributing it and then following up and helping the borrowers and you know what is most interesting the 100% of the contributions you make go towards helping the borrowers. And to ensure that money which have you lended is not misused or to eradicate the chance of mishandling or using it for wrong purpose the field partners ensure that they don't handover the cash or the entire money to borrowers, instead the organizations on field will construct a toilet, build a water connection and my case(http://fundraiser.milaap.org/campaigns/Sushant) give them the raw materials to start a Garam Masala powder business rather than giving them the capital.2

Trust and transparency:And Milaap also promises that lenders will be provided time to time update from the field, which they do through blogs and emails; here the Milaap fellows update us about the contribution we made and how it's impacting the lives and business of our borrowers. Besides that, whenever you are free and would like to visit your borrower to see the impact, you should go and make a visit to the field. Milaap have slots every month for our community to visit the field. So if you would like to visit them, let them know in advance and they can arrange a field trip with the borrowers.

Milaap team also have a team which takes photos and make videos and they have collected many testimonies from the field so that we can know that our money have truly reached people and we can listen to their stories and I will be waiting for the story of my borrower ;-). They have collected various different videos from various different projects from past and present and they have also interviewed partners and their volunteers. You can take a look at all of them from the following link. http://www.youtube.com/milaapdotorg.